Deadly
by Prime627
Summary: Mers don't exist. Atleast, that's what Hot Rod kept telling Arcee. And then she was kidnapped by one.
1. Chapter 1

They sang at night, sang in grief sometimes, but others, they were hungry, and they sang whenever they saw a ship.

This night was no different. The ship was travelling dangerously close to the shallows and most of the crew was oblivious or asleep. The captain was examining a map under candle light. Had he looked up, he would have seen the warnings posted by other captains who passed through, but paid the cost with their crews and with their ship.

The songs started, the femmes singing songs filled with false promises and lies that pulled the crew out of their hammocks and onto the deck.

The captain didn't even notice right away until his audios picked up the promises of a familiar adversary. "No..." He ran to the edge, feeling sick when he saw the red orbs glaring at him while the singing grew louder and louder.

The males liked to sing, too. Tarn was one of the best, and his tentacles reached out and latched onto whoever was close enough to drag them down, down, down to the deep. Tarn was very lonely in his little cave, and he begged for someone strong enough to stay instead of being cushed by the massive amounts of water.

Megatron was eyeing the captain, moving closer and closer until he could latch his wet, cold talons onto the captain's face. "Hello," he purred. " _Come to the water, come into the water, I promise you will be fine. You're just a little different from me, legs where I have none, but come to the water and you will be fine._ "

The captian snarled and squeezed his optics shut, hoping to shut out the sound. But the singing grew louder and louder.

The others were picking up on the tune. Airachnid had her claws around the cook's neck, pulling him closer and closer to the dark, inky water that was their home.

 _Come to the water, come into the water, I promise you will be fine. You're just a little different, legs where we have none, but come to the water and you will be fine. Come to the water, and come to the water, and come to the water, and you will be fine._

The cook was drowned. Tarn took the first mate and drug him behind him to his cave, but when he arrived, the mech was crushed and lifeless, and Tarn began his mourning.

The captain was so close to the water, so very close to death that he could kiss the water if he so desired. Megatron's face was just below the surface, his wet, webbed hands wrapped around his neck.

And then there was a flash of metal as the captain spun his favored dagger with surprising speed, a cloud of Energon, and two digits floated down in front of Megatron's face while he held his wounded servo. The captain made it out of the dangerous shallows once again, and this time, he promised never to return.

 **ooo**

Arcee closed her optics as she purred, the wind caressing her pink armor. She clutched Springer, smiling at him. "Isn't it pretty here?"

"Sure, if there weren't merformers running around. Optimus was attacked last night."

Hot Rod snorted. "Sure. Merformers don't exist. They're just a story for children to stop playing in the rocky shallows in this part of the ocean."

Arcee snorted softly, rolling her optics as she giggled. "Hot Rod, can't you just let me have _one_ legend to hold onto?"

"The Lake Tron Monster doesn't exist either."

" _Hot Rod!_ "

Their bickering was interrupted by Kup, the captain of the cruise ship. He said that the rockies were getting close and he wanted everyone to get away from the edges of the ship as there was ship debris everywhere, but he did not mention merformers, which disappointed Arcee a little bit. Springer stood with his arms wrapped around her hips in the middle of the cruise ship.

But as they went by the rocks and saw the ships, they became interested in the ships.

"This is where Optimus was attacked," Springer said softly and Arcee was at the edge within moments with the rest of the ship occupants.

"Look!"

While they were fascinated with the ship nearly fully intact with half of it out of the water and half of it submerged, Megatron crept out of the deep and swam under the cruise ship, gazing up at Arcee's awe-struck face when he poked his helm out to look for victims. He wanted her, wanted to take her into the water. He swam closer, and then he saw Springer. He growled and went down into the dark, cold water.

Arcee only saw a flash of silver and she squealed in delight. "Merformer!"

Hot Rod sighed. "You're hopeless, Arcee." He laughed softly and he looked at her.

She shook her helm. "I _saw_ it! It was silver."

"Silver?" Kup was behind her and they turned. "Optimus has filed warning after warning of a silver Deceptimer following him, chasing him, _plaguing_ him. You better hope it wasn't the same mech. Megatron is possessive and only goes after one victim at a time, and since Optimus isn't coming around here anymore, I think he's looking for a new victim."

Hot Rod rolled his optics. "Don't fill her helm full of stories, Kup... She believes in any little monster or fairy tale you toss her way."

"It wasn't a story. When we stop by at the next port, go walk into Visco Barrel and you'll find him at the bar. As him yourself then." Kup left them, walking back to see what the crew was doing.

Hot Rod looked down at the water. "Crazy old mech."

Arcee was about to scold him when the ship abruptly stopped, tossing everyone onboard around as if they were ragdolls.

"PRIMUS" was cried all at once.

Kup ran out, his optics wide. "Stay calm. Stay calm!"

There was a surge of water as something very large swam beside the ship and a screech of metal everyone ran to investigate.

There were three long, jagged claw marks on the side and a streak of silver being chased by a shadow of blue. And then a massive helm poked out of the water, exhaling mist.

It was a grand mech, bigger than anything Arcee or anyone else had ever seen. It was blue and white and red, with a white face and white and blue audio finials on the sides of his helm. He had blue lips that parted and revealed a redish glossa when he surfaced and his blue optics sought out Kup. "I have chased the Deceptimer away, Kup, and your ship is going to sink soon. I will retrieve help. Is everyone alright?"

"Yes, Ultra Magnus. Your work here is done."

The Automer nodded and turned away to dive. He seemed to go on forever, but then a large pair of blue flukes waved at Arcee before he was gone.

Hot Rod clung to the side of the ship as if his life was in peril still. "What the _frag_ was _that_?"

Kup raised his voice to address everyone on the ship. "That was Ultra Magnus. He's a guardian of this part of the ocean. Since we'll be going nowhere, let's get out of this ship and onto the rocks. There's some caves and-"

An angry mech stood up. "I paid good credits to get a tour around the ocean in a five-star cruise ship, not to sleep in a cave!"

"Well, you are welcome to sleep in this ship while it sinks to the ocean floor."

"It can't be that deep!" His mate was clinging to him, her optics wide. They held a sparkling between them. "The shores are right there!"

"The ocean can deceive you like that. This area dips far, and rises fast. Keep all children close to you at all times. Primus knows what mers and sirens lurk here."

Once everyone was safely tucked on the rocks, they watched the ship slowly sink with whatever belongings the occupants couldn't hurry off the ship.

Kup was closest to the edge, looking down at the cruise ship he had adored so much. "Well, the mers need something new. I hadn't given them much of anything."

Hot Rod looked up from his datapad. "Mers _exist_?"

"Sure. They're practically immortal. They live long until they are killed. They don't get diseases and they aren't easily killed, and they keep their babies close, so you'll probably only see old ones. The oldest is Tarn, and he and I have a history." Kup grinned at Hot Rod. "But that's another tale for another time."

Arcee whined softly and looked at Springer, who was staring at the cave.

"Did you hear that?" he asked softly.

Kup lifted his helm. "It was probably the wind," he said dismissively. He was fussing over the Energon he managed to save.

Hot Rod shook his helm. "Couldn't have been." He walked towards the cave and peeked in. He could hear water lapping at rocks and he moved closer, squinting.

Red optics focused on him and Hot Rod shrieked in horror, stumbling back. The red optics were gone and he heard a splash in the water. Springer was beside him.

"Did a little fish scare you?"

"There was something...there. Springer, I swear to Primus."

Arcee walked over and smiled. "I have some flashlights. I kinda wanna explore."

Springer looked back at Kup. "How soon will Ultra Magnus be back?"

"A couple days? Tonight? Who knows. He can't go very fast, and neither can vessels when they are in a hurry." He grinned. "Go on, explore." He gave Hot Rod a hard, cold stare. "Mers don't really exist."

"Thanks," Hot Rod muttered and he looked at the cave.

Arcee was already padding in, purring and squealing. She touched the walls, gently, as if they'd break under uncaring servos. "Look at this!"

There were little servoprints on the walls, almost along the wall next to the floor, but they weren't sparkling servos. They looked...webbed.

There was a hurried scrabbling sound and Arcee swung the light around just in time to see a little being struggling to get into the water. Its tail shook as it watched her and it stopped moving, as if it could disappear if it concentrated enough.

Springer and Hot Rod were still arguing about whether to walk in or not.

She looked back at the sparkling where it panted and stared at the pink femme with wide, scared optics. She knelt by it, touching its sticky armor.

"Trying to get into the water?"

It relaxed and let Arcee lift it, purring quietly while it was lowered into the water. She smiled down at it, holding it as she admired it.

It was silver and orange-streaked with a little bit of color around the optics, like goggles. Just as she let go of the little being, giant clawed servos clamped down around her wrists and pulled her in.

The last thing anyone heard from Arcee was a squeak and then the light went out and all three (the sparkling, the femme, and the attacker) disappeared.

 **ooo**

Megatron swam, holding his sister's sparkling against his chest and the femme at his side. He took her, not because he was hungry, but because she was unusual. She didn't run from the strange thing when she saw the sparkling, didn't cry, didn't bring everyone in to see it and laugh at it.

She helped it. Mersparklings had this annoying habit of freezing when they were scared. Most of them died because of it, caught up in the propellers, caught in fishing nets. They were truly pathetic. That's why Megatron almost vowed not to have any. That's why they stored their sparklings in the wreckage of ships, in caves connected to underground lakes by tubes like the one Megatron was in now.

The femme was running out of air, and she was in luck. Megatron wasn't hungry. He wanted to examine her more. What made her different from the others? He would truly like to know.

He let her go as soon as he knew he was in the cave. A lander wouldn't make it through unless he had help by a mer, and since the ones Megatron had been watching on the ship refused to admit they were lower on the food chain than they previously assumed, he knew he wouldn't be caught.

He watched her float to the surface of the lake, a pink blob surrounded by darkness and mers reaching for her, making sure she was alive. A carrying femme helped her breathe, patting her face. The newcomer was unconscious, and she was laid out on the Sunning Rocks, which were right under the hole in the roof that allowed sunlight. The sparklings surrounded her, interested.

 _She cannot stay_ , the Alpha growled at Megatron. He hooked claws under Megatron's chin.

While Megatron was head of a pod, he had no control over the entire pod. Cyclonus did, and Megatron obeyed him. Mostly.

 _Let her stay_ , Megatron growled back. Pleading was beneath him.

Cyclonus bared his denta, but he remained quiet. His tail shifted and his gills on his chest moved as he thought. _For now_. He became a purple and black-striped blurr as he left Megatron alone.

The swarm followed, and so did the warmth.


	2. Chapter 2

Megatron laid half in and half out of the water, his tail moving in the water, disturbing the vegetation under it. He liked the feel of the green strands stroking his slick skin. He leaned his helm on his arm as he watched the femme sleep. She was pink, and she was rather beautiful. He couldn't imagine how she would look if she belonged to his swarm.

She groaned and her optics flickered open. She sat up slowly. The sparklings and younglings slunk back into the water when their carriers called them. "Where am I?"

"In the camp of the Rock Swarm," Megatron said. He waited for her optics to look at him and widen with horror, but they didn't. They widened in awe and wonder.

"Whoa!" She moved closer, making him back up, even though the uncomfortable rush of water up his gills made him wince. "Oh, don't go away. I won't hurt you. Honest to Primus."

Megatron hesitated before he started to move closer, and then Cyclonus was there.

 _What are you doing?_ He growled, grabbing the smaller mech by his neck and squeezing. He ignored the femme's gasp. Megatron tilted his helm in her direction.

 _Nothing,_ he choked out. The femmes were sitting forward with interest, even the ones in his pod. He cursed mentally as he growled lowly. _I am being choked for no reason. What are you doing?_

Cyclonus' optics widened and he forced himself to let go of the mech's throat. Then he bared his denta and he snarled. _You defy me? You and I have a duel. Loser drops to lowest rank. Winner takes the swarm._

Megatron knew these battles never worked out for the one being drawn into a duel. Cyclonus didn't make duels recklessly. If he thought he was going to win, or if he thought he needed a burst of excitement, or more femmes to breed with him, he drug a poor mech into a fight, and more often than not, he killed them.

Cyclonus swam away, his shark-tail moving side to side instead of moving up and down like some of the femmes, who were already swarming him and begging him to breed with him by rolling over and exposing their little valves. Cyclonus only licked the exposed slits, diving beneath the water just to tease them. He did all his breeding above water, but they chased him anyway. It was really sad, but amusing to Megatron. He looked back at the femme.

She was watching Megatron, her optics wide with fear. "What happened?"

"He challenged me to a fight when I challenged his authority."

She gasped and scrambled to him. "Are you going to die?"

He blinked at her. Someone was worried about him? That never happened. "Possibly," he said warily. "If my upcoming death inconviences you, I could just drop you back in the cave."

She hesitated before moving closer till her upper body was over the water, her servos wrist-deep in the warm water. "Why did you take me anyway?"

"I wanted to know what was special with you," he whispered. "You didn't scream when you saw Crabtail."

She giggled. "Crabs don't have tails."

Megatron shrugged. "This little one does." He flicked the sparkling in question, chuckling when he hissed at him. "He is my nephew, and he has my sister's attitude. He is Cyclonus' creation."

Arcee giggled softly. "Do you have any children?"

"No," he said. Only the Alpha could sire sparklings. It was the way it went. If the Alpha remained Alpha, he deserved to be the sire of all sparklings. If he stopped being Alpha, his sparklings were killed. That forced the femmes in heat, and the new Alpha sired sparklings with all the femmes for hours as a Congratulations party.

"Oh. Do you think you could?"

"I could, and then Cyclonus, the Alpha, will kill my sparklings and then my mate."

"He's so cruel!"

"It keeps the swarm strong and alive, femme."

She couldn't understand. There was no way. She was a grounder and he a swimmer. They were different.

"My name is Arcee," she said softly. She looked away. "That's my name. Arcee."

"It is a pretty name," he said over Orca, who was breaching to show herself off. She was black and white with a tail that moved up and down instead of side to side. She was Cyclonus' favorite.

"Who is that?"

"Orca," Megatron said. "Beta to Cyclonus."

"What rank are you?"

"Something scraping Omega."

She winced and patted his helm, but that allowed for her over servo to slip and she fell into the water.

Her optics tried to focus. Beneath her, several feet under her, was the one Megatron called Cyclonus, surrounded by femmes. He was biting some, killing others that were weaker and more pathetic. Arcee got a first-servo account at how deadly these beautiful creatures were.

Megatron pulled her up and held her close, tilting his helm in a questioning way.

"He was killing the femmes!"

"Just the ones that don't produce." He put his helm under the water and watched his Alpha destroy a femme to feed his beloved Beta. "The swarm needs to be better, always."

"Swarm?"

"You're in the heart of it." He watched her, his tail moving side to side, sweeping her pedes with the small current he was making. He liked her warm armor against his own. It made him feel alive. Likeable.

"Oh." She looked around. "Will I stay in the heart of the swarm or will I move to the stomach region?"

He liked her. He liked her humor and he wanted her alive. He pressed his cheek against hers, his lips moving against her audio. She shivered. "If I were Alpha, you would be my Beta."

The talk of Alphas interested Cyclonus, but he let the pathetic mech dream while he fed his favored femmes. He took his pod out to bask in the full sunlight and to steal more femmes from surrounding swarms.

Orca was left in charge, and she laid out on the rocks, her rounded belly fully exposed while the sparklings surrounded her and nestled up to her.

Megatron had an idea. If Arcee was to stay, she had to get friendly with the Beta. He led her over to Orca, to the number two killer in the swarm, and told her to touch her tail.

Arcee reached out and touched the flukes. Orca shifted, her optics closed. She thought she was being handled by a femme of her pod, one who adored her.

Megatron guided her servo over her white underside, around the slit that was her valve, and up to her belly. Arcee was winning the Beta over. Orca was purring and moving around. She even let Arcee rub her belly, feel the sparklings squirm.

And then her optics opened. Arcee stared at her for a long time before she did something that Megatron could not teach her.

She lowered her optics and took up the submissive stance: her shoulders down, her limbs slack. She even turned her helm in shame.

Orca shifted, moving so her face was in Arcee's. Megatron backed away. If Orca was going to attack Arcee, he could not interfere.

Arcee was still, slack and limp, but still, and that was what mattered.

 _She is like us, but with no tail to move._ Orca looked at Megatron in a strange way before she nuzzled Arcee. Her teeth grazed the other femme's audio and she laid back, rolling onto her back and shooing the sparklings away.

Arcee had been accepted by the Beta by simply rubbing her and then going submissive. The other femme swimmers took _years_ to get on Orca's good side. Megatron felt warm all over. Arcee was going to stay alive!

But then dread filled him from his helm to his tail. If she was accepted by the Beta, Cyclonus would see her as fair game and take her to the Breeding Rocks to see if she produced, and since Megatron didn't know if they were compatible, if the coding didn't do anything, Arcee would die.

Megatron felt sick. He needed to swim, needed to get water through his gills. He dove down to see his pod, but they were all dead, floating still in the water while the sparklings fed on them.

It was his punishment. He was Omega now, just a servant mech with nothing else to do other than roll over and beg for mercy from Cyclonus.

Omegas rarely moved up in the rank.

Begging was beneath him.

Perhaps he should just let Cyclonus terminate him.

 **ooo**

When Cyclonus returned, Arcee was laying with Orca, both of them purring. Cyclonus halted and he bared his denta. How did this happen in his absense?

He searched for Megatron, found him still studying the bodies. He smirked and he swam to him.

 _Ready to fight?_

 _I'm ready to die._

 _Excellent. And when you are gone, I'll take the little pink femme to the Breeding Rocks to see what you find in her. Tell me. Will she be virgin or have you been playing with her?_

He expected Megatron to flare with anger, but he remained disappointingly cool. Cyclonus wanted to growl his frustration, but he stiffled it.

 _The only thing I did was bring you a femme and I kept her alive for you...Alpha._

That was a big step for Megatron. Referring to Cyclonus as his Alpha only occured once every time Megatron felt he was going to die, and that was hardly ever.

 _I could just send you back to your carrier's swarm._ Cyclonus did this to torture him. He knew he had killed every last one of the Blue Swarm. He only kept Starfall because she was carrying twins, and he kept Megatron because his split-spark was a femme, who was very, very good at producing strong femmes and weak mechs.

She was watching them now, her tail moving side to side in anger. She was protective of her older brother, and her claws shone like pearls.

Cyclonus didn't want to anger her. She often lost her litter of sparklings when she became angry. So he swam to her with a short burst of speed and touched her cheek lovingly. _How are you?_

She bit his digits. She knew she was safe. She was, in fact, carrying triplets. Femme triplets. They were going to be Cyclonus' treasures, and for that to happen, he had to keep her alive. _Do not kill my brother, or I will kill you._

Cyclonus put on a sincere face and he pressed it into her neck. She wasn't fooled. _I just lowered his ranking, that's all._

It was against his Alpha coding to have a male with him. He should have sent Megatron out with his daughters _years_ ago to create a new swarm, but he didn't. He kept Megatron around for a punching bag since he couldn't beat up on his femmes. They were always pregnant, and his sons hardly made it passed youngling-hood. They were always killed to push the carrier into heat, for a try-again.

 _That better just be all._ She bit his helm and swam away. _Clean up those bodies before they get old._ She wrapped her arms around Crabtail, who growled at her before he realized who it was.

Cyclonus watched in anger. He had kept Crabtail alive for now, but it was time to kill him. Why send his heir out to create a new swarm when there was a possibility of him creating a better son? He was still young, after all, with the opportunity to create sparklings for many, many years.

He planned both Megatron's death and his son's then. He smirked, and then went to Orca. He bit her flukes in greeting, watching her belly. She would give birth within the hour, he thought. Then he focused on Arcee, who was sleeping.

He planned her death as well.


	3. Chapter 3

Megatron was speechless. Cyclonus tossed Crabtail's dead body toward him.

The fighting had begun, and it started with the death of a son.

 _Ready to die?_

Megatron watched Crabtail sink in the water and then his optics were sheated in a film to protect them. He went into a feeding frenzy, attacking the larger mech with speed the other hadn't been expecting.

Cyclonus dodged the first attack, but earned a bite out of his tail. He attacked Megatron, clawing at his optics, but his vision was blurry as well. The film covered his optics just as he went to take a bite out of Megatron's shoulder, but the mech was gone and circling him angrily.

Instincts had taken over.

Cyclonus and Megatron were gone, driven from their minds by inescapable instincts that kept every beng alive.

Cyclonus whirled and sought Megatron with an open mouth and ready-to-sink-into-your-flesh claws. He missed, and he circled the water just below Megatron, searching and not finding before Megatron slammed down on top of his back.

Cyclonus was the biggest cat in the see. Why did he need to look up?

Megatron bit into his neck, his shoulder, his arms, biting at his digits while his own eight claws dug into his Alpha's shoulders, keeping him still beneath him.

Then the pure-muscle body under him wiggled and was out of his grip, and teeth dug into his face, his neck, very near to his throat. He shoved him off, then took the fight deeper and deeper until there was nothing but darkness and the dead.

Tarn observed the fight, holding the pale, crushed body of his latest victim. He was told by Cyclonus to go after the loser and drag him down, make him his next pet. When Tarn had been told that, Cyclonus expected to come out on top like he had for years, but he found he had miscalculated this fight. He had thought Megatron as week, as pathetic, but compared to him, Cyclonus was weak. How could he have let this thing to live?

Megatron pushed the Alpha down until the soft muck and sand was against the mech's back. Cyclonus' optics became unsheathed due to fear and he stared at the mech for a long time.

A smirk walked across Megatron's face and Cyclonus knew he was going to die. Tarn was inching forward, his tentacles wrapping around a tail and a waist and then pulling the mech back toward him.

Cyclonus left claw tracks in the sand and muck as he wailed, the water going up his gills due to being drug backwards, drowning him slowly. It was a painful death, one he deserved for breaking Crabtail's back in three different places. The first paralyzed him, the second was messy, and the third was to fix the other mistakes.

Megatron looked up to where there was light, and he angled his body up. Energon gushed into the water from his wounds, but mostly it was Cyclonus' Energon.

The femmes welcomed him once they saw his murky form in the water, and they offered their valves. He ignored them, continuing to swim while Orca nuzzled up to him for the first time.

Arcee dove in to greet Megatron and she hugged him tight.

"I have to breed." He kissed her neck, licking up to her audio. He claimed her as his mate, not as his Beta. His narrow spike found her panel and he worked at driving it into her, hoping to find the slit. There were no panels on the swimming femmes, so he was confused when he kept hitting nothing, missing his target completely due to one little plate.

Arcee held onto him, and then she reached down and pulled her panel back. She was accepting him as her mate.

His spike worked into her valve. It was different than the other slits would be, he sensed. He overloaded quickly into her, which was disappointing for her, but not for him. He kissed her hard and pressed his webbed servos onto her face. "Mine now."

"All yours," she said and she touched his cheeks and audios, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

Megatron pulled away to kill Cyclonus' sparklings and replace them with his own. Orca lost her litter, as did his sister. They were given new sparklings, and with the several femmes crowding him to get a bit of his coding into their valves, he knew he would not be challenged for a long time. But he wouldn't make the same mistakes as Cyclonus.

 _Every_ mech was a threat, even his sons, and he vowed to kill them as soon as they were born. He couldn't afford to lose Arcee.

He loved her too much.

 **ooo**

Ultra Magnus moved as fast as he could. He was almost there. He could sense Kup, but he could also sense their dispair. He looked back at the ship following him, but they were being left behind. So he slowed once more and he made a soft sound of frustration.

 _If Optimus were here..._

Ultra Magnus saw the rocks before the ship did. He finally left them behind and he swam up to Kup.

"Arcee's gone," he said. "I think that the Rock Swarm has her. Maybe Cyclonus got her or-"

Ultra Magnus didn't stay for the rest. He knew the entrance to the Rock Swarm heart, and he dove under the water. To get to them, he'd have to make it past Tarn, but he didn't think that would be a problem, especially after he grabbed a string of pearls from a femme's body that laid lifeless half-buried in the sand and muck of the ocean floor.

Tarn wasn't interested in him. He was holding a body to his chest, something that wasn't crushed. Ultra Magnus slowly approached the being, holding out the pearls as if they bit him. But Tarn let him pass by, pulling his tentacles in so they didn't brush against the larger mech.

Cyclonus laid lifeless in his arms.

Ultra Magnus surfaced, and he reached out to touch the rocky ledge so he could pull himself up a little more.

Arcee was laying on the rocks in front of him, her belly slightly rounded. Megatron was laying beside her, stroking her arm and then her belly. They didn't notice him until Orca wailed in fear. Though she was a killer, Ultra Magnus was massive, and she couldn't take him out on her own.

Megatron looked up. _Friend,_ he said softly to Orca. _You look for Arcee?_

Arcee opened her optics and she smiled at Ultra Magnus. The larger mech reasoned she might have told Megatron about his return.

 _Yes,_ Ultra Magnus replied. _Come to bring her back to her friends._

 _Her friends are with us now_. Megatron's optics narrowed and Ultra Magnus backed up a bit. The swarm's Alpha had changed and the new Alpha had chosen a mate. And that was Arcee.

He couldn't take her even if he wanted to.

He left her, then, going out the way he came in. He helped the cruise ship's occupants on the new ship and he swam away from the Rock Swarm.

No other ship was taken as it voyaged through the shallows, and the Legend of the Rocks was formed from superstitious mechs as they gulped Visco and High Grade down.

Optimus remained unconvinced until he was finally coaxed back into the shallows and Megatron didn't sing for him. Now he takes cruises all the time with Kup.

But what happened to Arcee? Well, grounders don't live as long as swimmers, but sometimes, if you take one of Kup's cruises and you lean over the edge of the boat as soon as he tells you not to, you can see a silver mer holding the servo of a pink grounder, a pink and silver sparkling with a tail following closely behind.


End file.
